DACA, DAPA, DREAM, and Dump

The way the American people is being controlled from the top involves manipulative narratives and outrageous maneuvers as two of their major weapons. They serve to distract us from the fundamentally important issues, warp our sense of reality, divert citizen activism onto roads to nowhere, disunite us, scapegoat innocents for the crimes of the plutocracy, and so forth. One of the worst versions are wanton atrocities that create problems out of nowhere, to direct us into fighting over them rather than fixing the underlying rigged system.

One of these latter is the current war on immigrants, especially the children of immigrants. Like many mind games of this sort, the perpetrators’ narrative starts out with a reasonable truism: namely that people should take care of their own pressing needs before anything else, much like medics are advised to put their own safety first lest they become hurt themselves and add to the pile of help-requiring accident victims while reducing the pool of helpers. Makes sense, right?

So, in this manner we are getting told that America has its own down-on-their-luck citizens to prioritize before worrying about people who are not “legally” here. The problem with this logic is twofold:

1.) Yes, we have citizens in serious trouble because they have no income, are without access to critical healthcare, and so forth. The logical step to take would be to fix those problems by such means as creating federal job programs, a universal basic income (citizen dividend), Medicare for All, etc.

2.) It makes little sense to skip real solutions (such as I just mentioned) and instead pounce on a vulnerable group of people and kick them out of the country so that there may be fewer folks to share our measly scraps with. Not only doesn’t this solve our problems at their source, but this also ignores the fact that the people thrown out don’t just consume. They also produce. So there could be fewer scraps.

This reasoning resembles throwing passengers over board of a sinking ship as opposed to plugging the holes in the hull that make the ship sink.

In addition, the human suffering caused by exiling hundreds of thousands of young people for something their parents did, places a very black mark on America. It is shameful, and resembles the scapegoating and persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, the same Nazis our parents (or grandparents) fought in World War II whereby our country catapulted itself to the position of the world’s most admired nation.

How could we so reverse our course? Because we have been colonized by a plutocratic oligarchy that doesn’t care about human rights and compassion and won’t stop at any manipulation that further entrenches its power and stolen wealth, that’s why.

For those who swallow the current nativist Kool-Aid, let me ask you: What would help you more when you are unemployed and lack healthcare: kicking out some young people you may later depend on in old age as your caregivers, or implementing Medicare for All that covers you and your entire family, plus giving you a job and/or a citizen dividend of monthly money that currently goes to billionaires instead of you and me?

All that talk about DREAMER children using up resources in schools or emergency rooms leaves out that you and I are growing old and will eventually have to rely on young people to keep us alive, supplied, and taken care of. Our country has had a dropping birth rate which inverts our age pyramid. Young immigrants are a welcome help in that regard, and teaching kids in school is an investment for you and me. Also, immigrants don’t only take jobs. They also spend the money they earn as consumers, tenants, and tax payers, and thereby help fuel our economy which in turn creates jobs. So it’s cherry-picking of facts that creates the illusion that immigrants, documented or not, are a burden. The real burden are the parasitic and predatory robber billionaires who have ruined our country and keep ruining it. Let’s get our facts straight so we can fight back.

When you throw all the aspects of immigration into the mixing bowl, it becomes hard to say whether the costs outweigh the benefits or the benefits outweigh the costs. The mix fluctuates and more or less balances out. What sense, then, does it make to place immigration at the top of our priorities, above things like money in politics, a fair economy, healthcare for all, or a functioning democracy free from voter suppression and election rigging? Wouldn’t we be much better off if we did something about an economic system that creates billionaires out of 1% of the population, squeezes the middle class, and brutalizes the poor, than if we scapegoat immigrants for our economic mess?

We have big crises. That’s absolutely true. But immigration — through proper immigration procedures or not — isn’t really one of them. And when you consider the human suffering caused by tearing apart families, friendships, and communities, and by exiling innocent people from their homes, jobs, career paths, and cultural roots, there is yet another reason not to jump the gun on immigrants, especially in a country that has always been an immigrant nation and benefited tremendously from it. Just think of our amazing variety of delicious cuisines, cultural art forms, and the physical beauty of the American people thanks to immigration from all over the world. Most other countries are sooo monotonously boring in comparison! All the kicking out of immigrants has wrecked their lives but never helped our country. And the circumstances that determine who is here “legally” or not can be very arbitrary.

Here is a bunch of videos I came across that may educate people who are too removed from the immigrant community to really understand the issues involved:

A glimpse at what the tearing apart of families looks like. I suppose those who prefer trouncing their fellow working-class folks over fighting the abusive billionaires may feel proud seeing that:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “RAW: Family say emotional goodbye to father deported from US “)

Making the childhood victims of migration even more a stranger in their country by exiling them into a to them foreign country where they will be discriminated as strangers all over again. And how exactly did White Americans become “Native Americans”, if I may ask?

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Meet the People Protected by DACA | NYT“)

Here is a sample of the bogus and evil propaganda with which the establishment divides us, pitting different needy groups against each other, not talking about how to save the sinking ship of our nation, but rather urging us to throw each other over board. How many of our immigrant ancestors are turning in their graves?

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The Truth About Government Shutdown and DACA“)

Another glimpse at the many ways people in our country become “illegal” without being criminals. Frankly, I’d much rather keep a law-abiding nurse in this country than a here-borne criminal:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “This nurse found hope in DACA, now his life is in limbo”)

Why not instead toss out all the billionaires and equally share their ill-gotten assets among us? That would indeed be taking our country back!

BTW, do you know about how our immigration laws sift and sort people? If you are poor and desperate to feed your family, you may have to sneak across the border, getting no other option. And if you bring your children along, they will be criminalized for it. If you are well off enough to afford attending a university, or you already got a good enough education to get a good job, you can get a student or working visa and don’t have to become a dirty, rotten, “criminal” entering “illegally.” And if you are rich, having a million dollars of spending money, then you can walk in on a red carpet and get a green card, courtesy of our plutocracy.

Background info. The history of DACA, DAPA, and the DREAM Act:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The DREAMers and DACA Explained“)

Another interesting explanation from another angle:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Who are the Dreamers and why is their future at risk? – Planet America explains DACA“)

When low-wage workers want to kick out undocumented immigrants as their unwanted competition for low-wage jobs, that is nothing but a case of disowned, unfairly treated, underpaid people fighting each other over crumbs instead of fighting together for a decent piece of the economic pie. As we, who have been robbed, fight each other over scraps, the rich who rip us off a million ways every day are laughing on their way to the bank. Unity would serve us a lot better.

Let’s have an economic analysis from a professor of economics:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Immigration: Costs, Benefits and How Best to Respond “)

And last, but definitely not least, here is a great clip debunking popular misconceptions. Truth right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Let’s hear a dreamer talk for herself and teach us about what it means to be American:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “5 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DACA FROM A DACA RECIPIENT”)

DACA “recipient” doesn’t mean receiving money, by the way. All these blameless young people have been “receiving” is a suspense of roadblocks thrown in their paths and reason to hope that justice would eventually prevail. This hope is now in danger of being dashed out of sheer cruelty, ignorance, and political demagoguery, the ulterior motive behind which is to keep us from fighting for our due.

Conclusion: Atrocities like the horrible treatment of immigrant children and everyone who is connected to them are part of the “good cop/bad cop” routine of our twin party tyranny. One party starts a horrible treatment of a group of people in our country, then the other party pounces on it as their defender; and while we are busy fighting over this artificially created issue, the really burning issues we need to address remain unaddressed. Money in politics and a horrible economy that steals from the many to give to the rich continue, as does a profiteering healthcare system that sacrifices thousands of Americans each year, because we are busy participating in the Remocrat-Dempublican “good cop/bad cop” routine. What we should do is stop the atrocities in a fell swoop (like extend DACA or pass a proper DREAM Act) and get to work on fixing our rigged system. And if the billionaires-serving party duopoly blocks us from that, then let’s sweep it aside!

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